Column: Beto sent people to the polls

Now that the mid-term election is behind us, I can speak up about something that has been bugging me for about six months:

I’m so jealous of Beto O’Rourke.

It’s not because anybody who’s anybody lo conoce: he’s either Beto or El Beto or That White Guy Who Wants Everyone To Think He’s Latino. And it’s not because he looks like a Kennedy or an L.L. Bean ad. It’s not even because he was able to convince people to give him a great deal of money — about $70.2 million, according to nonpartisan TexasTribune.org.

I’m jealous of Beto in the same way I used to be jealous of 2016 Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio. I’m jealous because they have the trust and hope of a lot of people behind them.

That’s a lot of momentum.

Most of us don’t have anywhere near that level of momentum sent our way. At best, we might be the one assigned to make the Thanksgiving turkey, because we have the most reliable oven. Maybe we’re the one charged with deciding where the extended family is going to meet to open Christmas gifts. Some of the more famous among us have the ability to make people listen. Eva Longoria, for example, can sell us that turquoise can of spray paint that makes one look less pelona just because she says it really works. Spurs coach Gregg Popovich can make people get ridiculously mad just by expressing his opinion about the president.

But politicians are different.

Politicians are able to make us hope for something big. They are able to make us dream about a future that we didn’t think possible. They are able to convince us that change is right around the corner.

Likewise, they are also able to convince us that, if they win, it will mean bad, bad things for us. They will vote to do things that will hurt us, and they will derail things that would help us from happening.

Judging from the reaction of my fellow Americans, I think Beto did that. People heard his message, and that message sent people to the polls.

We need more of that magic. We need the kind of magic that gets people to block walk and put signs in their yard. Of course, that is also the kind of magic that moves people to steal the signs out of their neighbors’ yards but it is magic, nonetheless. It is the magic that convinces people that, despite how small they make feel, their vote really matters.